It is known to configure an electronic device with personalized settings stored on a memory module such as a USB key. This ability to “personalize” the electronic device can be useful in a number of contexts such as in a healthcare environment, where different clinicians of widely varying skill sets and backgrounds share a network of generic terminals. A given clinician can even be provided with access to intelligent, location-dependent services if the terminals are fixed and the network knows each terminal's fixed location.
However, the ability of current systems to offer location-dependent services is severely impaired when the location of the point from which a user is accessing the network is unknown. This situation is not uncommon and may arise, for example, when a clinician accesses a mobile or movable electronic device capable of being transported within a hospital. It would therefore be desirable to extend the provision of location-dependent services to users of mobile or movable networked electronic devices of various kinds, particularly in a healthcare environment.
It is further known that the application of smart context aware solutions can enable major new capabilities in a healthcare environment, but to do so requires that all of the relevant personnel and equipment be equipped with location tracking devices and be personalized into the so-called environment- and context-aware system (ECAS). This can be a large undertaking for an early-phase deployment when a few clinicians will be using the system so an approach is needed whereby not all equipment (or clinicians) are outfitted with location tracking devices before the first clinicians can use the system.